Not a real entry...
Passages I really liked from Douglas Coupland's Life After God...
What is it that makes us us? I thought of how odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people.
I have to remind myself that time only frightens me when I think of having to spend it alone. Sometimes I scare myself with how many of my thoughts revolve around making me feel better about sleeping alone in a room.
I had lots of love to give - it’s just that no one was taking it then. I had thought I was finding consolation in solitude, but to be honest I think I was only acquiring a veneer of bitterness.
Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we’ve missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.
She remembers another thing about when she was young- she remembers when the world was full of wonder - when life was a strand of magic moments strung together, a succession of mysteries revealed, leaving her feeling as thought she was in a trance. She remembers back when all it took to make her feel like she was part of the stars was to simply talk about things like death and life and the universe. She doesn’t know how to reclaim that sense of magic anymore.
How intimate are we really? In the end, did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves?
When you’re young, you always feel that life hasn’t yet begun - that “life” is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays - whenever. But the suddenly you’re old and the scheduled life didn’t arrive.
She says: I’m sorry, but I just stopped being in love. It happened. I woke up and it was gone and it scared me and I felt like I was lying and hollow pretending to be “the wife.” And I just can’t do it anymore. I love you but I’m not in love.
What is it that makes us us? I thought of how odd it is for billions of people to be alive, yet not one of them is really quite sure of what makes people people.
I have to remind myself that time only frightens me when I think of having to spend it alone. Sometimes I scare myself with how many of my thoughts revolve around making me feel better about sleeping alone in a room.
I had lots of love to give - it’s just that no one was taking it then. I had thought I was finding consolation in solitude, but to be honest I think I was only acquiring a veneer of bitterness.
Time ticks by; we grow older. Before we know it, too much time has passed and we’ve missed the chance to have had other people hurt us. To a younger me this sounded like luck; to an older me this sounds like a quiet tragedy.
She remembers another thing about when she was young- she remembers when the world was full of wonder - when life was a strand of magic moments strung together, a succession of mysteries revealed, leaving her feeling as thought she was in a trance. She remembers back when all it took to make her feel like she was part of the stars was to simply talk about things like death and life and the universe. She doesn’t know how to reclaim that sense of magic anymore.
How intimate are we really? In the end, did we ever really give each other completely to the other? Do either of us even know how to really share ourselves?
When you’re young, you always feel that life hasn’t yet begun - that “life” is always scheduled to begin next week, next month, next year, after the holidays - whenever. But the suddenly you’re old and the scheduled life didn’t arrive.
She says: I’m sorry, but I just stopped being in love. It happened. I woke up and it was gone and it scared me and I felt like I was lying and hollow pretending to be “the wife.” And I just can’t do it anymore. I love you but I’m not in love.